VUE DE MONDE

VUE DE MONDE: MELBOURNE’S CUP RUNNETH OVER
So, after the relative disappointments of Sydney and a non food inspired (which is just as well given how uninspiring the food was) trip to Perth, I have spent the last few days in Melbourne.

There is a huge rivalry between these two cities and both have a great deal to offer. But, in food terms, there is no competition. Melbourne knocks its more braggardly neighbour (and, remember everybody needs good neighbours because that’s when good neighbours become good friends) into a cocked hat with corks on it to keep away the flies and ranks high amongst the best eating cities I have ever visited.

You can read about the foodie wonderment that is Melbourne on EAT MY GLOBE as soon as I get back to the UK and have chance to write about it. At the moment I am too busy shoving food down my gullet, but it is worth the wait to hear about Canoli and lobster claws at Brunetti’s, Bratwurst at The Vic’ Market, Baked Cheesecake at St Kilda and, best of all, the mother of all Souvlaki at Lamb on Chapel St.

However, Melbourne does not just win out on the ethnic cheap eats front, it also wins the battle of the high end dining battle, based of course on my limited and entirely unscientific approach.

Given my loose methodology, it was lucky that I was joined on my visit to Vue De Monde by my brainiac pal, Dr Adam Balic and his equally smart wife, Rebecca who had been kind enough to put a roof over my head for the week of my stay. I am pretty sure they are going to be well stretched considering ways to fumigate my room after I leave and I am also pretty certain I have heard the word “exorcism” mentioned.

Vue de Monde. Melbourne’s finest opened a little over seven years ago under head chef, Shannon Bennett and Adam, in his clinically analytical way had selected it not just for the food but because of its importance in the development of dining in Melbourne. It is true that the very mention of it makes most Melbournians go a little shaky at the knee with excitement at the thought of chef Bennett’s culinary creations.

It is an effort to get a table and, once you do secure a reservation, you receive at least six further phone calls to confirm, reconfirm and take credit card details. All a bit odious really and compounded by an equally silly attitude to Melbourne’s otherwise ubiquitous BYO policy which involved a further million phone calls and a breathless wait to hear if the sommelier considered a selection of bottles from Dr Balic’s cellar worthy of consideration.

All this tomfoolery makes me nervous as I find it hard to imagine that a restaurant can supply a decent experience with its own head so firmly inserted in its own rectum. However, when we arrived the unstuffy nature of the service belied the silliness that had gone before.

Critics had described the chef as “risk taking” and “experimental” which makes me profoundly uneasy when what we are talking about is my dinner and a bloody expensive one at that.

This “risk taking” comes through in the room too with school style chairs given little added comfort with the addition of padding, lamps swinging precariously close ot head level from red string and an open kitchen with angled mirrors so squealing diners can get a look at the food porn on the professional side of the pass.

Likewise, I had my doubts about the food. Doubts that were deepened both when I dipped my knife into a pat of Eschire butter that turned out to have gone stale and when our server came over to explain the menu. They don’t believe in such old fashioned things as paper here. They don’t have a menu, they have a “philosophy” a philosophy based on a Menu Gourmand of a minimum of five courses ((for AU$180) which can be supplemented by further courses for additional cost up into you burst or your wallet waves the white flag.

So, there we were in a restaurant harder to get into than a nun’s knickers. A restaurant that had called us more times than an ex girlfriend with issues and where the staff had acted out the menu philosophy by way of mime while we ate stale butter and I was prepared to hate every moment.

But, I didn’t. God help me I actually really liked it.

There were some dishes that did not work and there was a little too much of the test tube/teet pipette frippery that I dislike but, underlying all of this is a very serious kitchen creating an ever changing menu which offers, daily, over 40 dishes from which to construct a menu.

An amuse of snails was not well regarded by any of us. A little too hard to eat and not worth the effort for the small mouthful our excavations unearthed. But, the slick of Aloe Vera and Pea sauce gave a sign of things to come.

A dish of South Australian Abalone came with the mollusc braised for 12 hours and then served in thin meaty slices with its braising juices and an eight spice powder heady with star anise. An accompanying trip of melon discs with watermelon foam lacked crispness but the seafood was off the scale good.

By universal acclaim, the next dish was the star of the night. A risotto spiked with Madeira was made perfectly to point and, on its own, would have been memorable. When slivers of West Australian truffle were layered on top, it became unforgettable.

Rebecca eschewed things offally, so for the next course, she stared down a plate of tomato cannelloni with a garlic crumb and Iberico ham while Adam and I worked our way through a terrine with layers of confit carrot, foie, rabbit rillette and a pistachio mousse. Hers worked better in description than execution although I liked the taste of garlic crumb I snaffled. Ours was top of the tree good and the rabbit, in particular did not give his life in vain.

Fish dishes are where high end restaurants often get found out. Vue de Monde did not. A small red mullet came stuffed with local crayfish and while the carrot string binding added little the fish and filling were exemplary. The first appearance of a test tube obliged the waitress to give us some instructions on how to use its contents by dribbling a little of the juices inside over the fish to begin and then supping the rest when everything else was finished. Hardly worth the effort or the performance but the main ingredient won us over.

A little cleanser was out next, er, intercourse as small foaming glasses were brought out. I am always wary of things that foam. From the bath time in Matey Bubbles as a child to rabid dogs, they remind me of bad stuff. Below the dry ice inspired foolishness however lurked a clear tomato consommé that had us all arching an eyebrow like Roger Moore in one of his more expressive acting moments. Very, very good indeed.

Which is just as well as what followed was the misfire round. The first meat course saw Rebecca presented with two small squared of belly pork with some slivers of brussel sprouts and a small foamy mound flavoured with apple cider. As poor a dish involving belly pork as I can recall and, when she rejected it after one mouthful, neither Adam or I wanted any part of that action. The black pudding was good although, so as not to frighten the locals they called it “boudin” despite its very British style.

Our meat courses were precious little better with flavourless lamb loin and fatty belly in a greasy sauce of split peas being saved only by the addition of some fine small sweetbreads.

Fortunately, the next course more than made up for it. I normally despise smooth cheffy stylings on a classical theme, but Shannon Bennett’s take on Beef Wellington is an astonishing success. Rare red dear with a tarragon mousse surround comes enfused with a mushroom jelly and encased in a sweet brioche like pastry. With small “soldiers” of carrot and mandarin foam, it was as good a meat dish as I have eaten this year.

The second intercourse (which is a lot more than someone with a face like mine is used to) came in the lollipop shape of quickly frozen slices of kiwi surrounded by a strong peppermint jelly. So good that I got Adam to beg the waitress to bring me another which they happily did.

All of which cleared the palette for the next amusement. A small egg box containing three upturned eggshells stuffed with, in turn, pistachio Custard, white chocolate and orange mousse and a prune & armagnac eggnog. Each had its own distinct texture and clean flavours and we each chose a different one as out favourite.

Adam loves his cooking and his cookware. The final course made him give a little girly squeal of delight as small glass dishes containing raspberry soufflé were placed in front of us. The inside of the glasses had been dusted with dried crushed strawberry which also sprinkled the plate and the whole was topped with a small, sharp raspberry ice cream. Perfectly made and perfectly refreshing.

They failed the mint tea test which is shameful at any restaurant but particularly at one charging this much money but they aced the napkin test and the arrival of excellent petits made up for it. Standard and competent macaron sat next to small cake cases containing mini Pavlova which we filled with apricot from a teat pipette. Banana ice cream came covered in chocolate and on sticks and tiny tarte tatin finished off the plate as indeed, did we.

Adam had dipped into the Balic cellar for two exceptional bottles which met the sommelier’s approval. A 1998 Chateau Fuisse had aged, was buttery and worked well with at least two of the dishes. A 1990 Chateau Climens Sauternes did equally well against the puddings. We complemented these with the sommelier’s selection of small glasses for the first couple of courses which included a Fino sherry and a not entirely successful Vouvray. A bottle of 2002 Bandol held its own with the meat dishes.

That lot with a little corkage brought the bill to about AU$850 (about £120 a head) which is not insubstantial and, for a town where you can eat sublimely well for $10, pretty frightening.

But, this is a world class restaurant and,although operating in a small pond, would be 1-2* quality in places where such things matter.

Comparisons are odious, but then so am I, so I am going to make one. My other high end experience in Australia was at Tetsuya which, while a different style of cuisine is still fighting for the same “international diner” market. I enjoyed both but while Tetsuya is, to all intents and purposes, offering the same menu as he has for many years, Shannon Bennet is constantly recreating. Where Tetsuya offers comfort and recognition for regulars, Vue de Monde offers change and challenge which sometimes comes with the inevitable misfire. The misfires at Tetsuya were shameful for a place that does the same dishes day in day out. The failures at Vue de Monde come from taking risks some of which wont work.

Tetsuya is at No4 in the Restaurant Magazine’s specious listing of best restaurants in the world. Vue De Monde comes in at a lowly 70 something. I can only assume that is because most of the liggers, n’ eer do wells and hangars who vote have not been here

So, Melbourne has it at every level over Sydney. Poor souls in NSW, what are they going to do? I guess they could always let fireworks of that bridge again.

BISTRODE: THE BASTARD SON OF HIX & HENDERSON
Well, I have come to the end of my time in Sydney and, if I am honest, I have been underwhelmed by the restaurant scene even if I have had some good things to eat.

Vibrant enough,with lots of new places opening, but small scale and lacking its own identity. The only element of Sydney’s eating I will really crave when I get back home is the array of food courts where you can pick up a plate of noodles or a pho for $10. Otherwise, there is little here to spark much nostalgia.

I, obviously, did not get to try everywhere I wanted due to time and budget. But, based on this visit and that of another recent foray, I can reasonably argue to have got a handle on what this city has to offer.

That is not to say that I did not have some enjoyable meals at Tetsuya, Bill’s, Bentley etc but nothing to actively miss when I get home and nothing to suggest that any of them was doing something I could not get in London ( though admittedly at twice the price).

Oh, and most of the wines have truly sucked. But, that is ever the way when one is playing 'Billy no mates" and drinking from the selection by the glass.

Thankfully the hateful “lemongrass and galangal with everything” school of cooking that seemed to exemplify so much of Australian cooking has faded to allow a more mature approach to ingredients and there are signs that Australia is truly trying to develop its own cuisine rather than be a pale reflection of its Asian and Mediterranean siblings. On this snapshot, however, I still think it has a long way to go.

Strange then, that the most enjoyable meal of my trip should be beholden to neither Asian or Med influences but to good old Mother England who otherwise is only represented by Fish & Chips and the ubiquitous pie.

Bistrode, on Bourke St in the achingly fashionable Surry Hills area is the result of a union between Jeremy & Jane Strode and just about every decent gastropub in London. It’s menu both in design and content owes just about everything to the contributions of Fergus Henderson and Mark Hix to English cooking. If I had been shown the menu without knowing, I could easily have suggested it came from The Anchor & Hope, The Rivington Grill, The Fox or St John Bread & Wine. It is little surprise that, when the waiter gave me a copy of the chef’s cookbook, it should have a quote from Hix on the jacket.

Warm Pig’s Head with a Pickled Egg Salad, Ox Tongue with Gherkins, Smoked Eel & Bacon, Seven Hour Shoulder of Mutton. Sound familiar anyone?

None of this makes it a bad place, of course and it is not. For what drags this from the danger of being an antipodean “nose to tail” wannabe is the quality of the cooking.

A starter of a baked duck egg came topped with slices of black pudding and tomato jam that combined to a pleasing mess when the yolk was broken and the blood sausage dipped in the result. Black pudding is seldom seen on menus in Sydney I was told and this example had to be purchased from the one butcher in Sydney who knew how to make a good one.

Main courses too were, shall we say, an homage to pubs back home of the gastro type and I plumped for Berkshire Pork Belly with Red Cabbage and a side of Brussels with chestnuts. Again, more than competent, with a good strip of belly pork, melting fat and crackling working well with a sharp cabbage and the crunch of the chestnuts.

I did not have pudding from a list which included Welsh Rarebit (the waiter had to explain that one to a few people) nor any wine ( after a liver challenging meal with Simon Thomsen the night before at Bentley ) and the bill came to $60 (about £26) for the two courses including tip which is good value for decent cooking and good service.

In the 18 months it has opened, Bistrode’s menu has made it one of the most popular places in town and it was packed to the rafters during my visit and every time I passed by on the way to my accommodation.

I can see why. It was a tasty well cooked meal that was also well priced. But, while unique to Sydney, hardly a sign of a city developing it's own identity.

Still, they have, at least not yet succumbed to the triple cooked chip, so there is still hope.

BONDI ICEBERGS: BLAH ON THE BEACH
If you were to ask anyone to name a beach, the chances are they would go for Bondi. With the possible exception of Rio, it is the most famous of beaches and synonymous with surf, sea, sand and a bit of how’s your father.

I was not there for any of those things as it is also home to one of the hardest to come by tables in the whole of Australia at Bondi Icebergs restaurant. The Lonely Planet (ever the arbiter of fine dining, ahem!) says “ call way in advance and pray your luck’s in.”

Well, mine was and it actually wasn’t that hard given that I called on Saturday for a lunchtime table on Tuesday.

Being in full “mad dogs and Englishmen” mode, I decided to walk the 10k from Surry Hills to Bondi despite the worried teeth sucking of the good folks at my accommodation who warned me that it was “ a bloody long way”

They were right, but it is also a great walk past Centennial parklands and The Aussie Stadium to Bondi Junction and then on to the beach itself.

After a quick shoeless stroll on the sands to soothe my tootsies and not, I repeat not to perve at the topless hon’s sunning themselves in the late morning rays, I headed for the restaurant

If there is any eatery on the planet with better views, I would like to know about it. Sitting at the top of the hill as you enter Bondi, it has a full view of the beach and the surf in all their glory.

The bar is a magnet for celebs and wannabees and, even on a quiet Tuesday lunchtime was already full when I arrived. The bar is a hotspot too so I took the opportunity to have a drink before lunch. Not a good idea. The Iceberg Punch was a diabetes inducing mix of juices and enough sugar to form an iceberg of its own. Quite nasty, in fact.

I left most of it and headed for my table which was in a quiet part of the room with great views over the surf.

The menu is modern Italian and, as well as the main menu, they offer a range of steaks which, for once, didn’t get the juices going.

Instead, while I tried some nondescript bread, I pondered on the light, seasonal offerings and chose, to begin a dish of blue stone crab cooked in a little oil and chilli served on a soupy plate of soft polenta.

It turned out to be better in the description than the execution with an over enthusiastic use of lemon juice and under use of chilli swamped all the flavour leaving you with nothing more than the grainy ploenta.

Better was a main course of pork chop with a mandalini(?) which involved sautéed yellow peppers, raisins and almonds. The pork was excellent although the concept of cooking to medium seems not to have crossed down under and it was only a touch away from dry. The pepper thing was more interesting than tasty. Very tasty, however was a classic combination of peas, feta and mint that I ordered as a side.

As always, the curse of the solo diner meant that I had to suffer risibly bad wines by the glass and a domestic Riesling and Sangiovese brought little to the party except another $25 on the bill.

With no pudding or coffee and a tip of 15% the bill came to a not insubstantial AU$130 (about £55) which is a lot to pay for decent enough cooking without a shred of flair. Obviously, it is hiked up because of the location but, if that was all that mattered I could have bought a hot pie and sat on a bench by the beach.

I am afraid Icebergs left me stone cold.

TETSUYA: ONE MAN, FOURTEEN COURSES
Tetsuya was recently voted No5 best restaurant in the world by trade gossip rag, Restaurant Magazine and, while the creation of the list is a most spurious exercise, the constant appearance of this restaurant in the upper reaches should tell us something about Sydney’s most sought after reservation.

I must be one of the few people in the world to cancel a reservation at Tetsuya which I did on my last visit when I was feeling under the weather. I regretted it ever since and this time, I was determined to make sure I snagged a table

Mind you, they don’t make it easy. Faxed confirmations, phone confirmations, vials of blood to be deposited at a secret location (well I made that last bit up, but you get the picture) and, it is not cheap either with the degustation menu with attending wine flight coming in at AU$300 (about £125) which is expensive by London standards and makes it a “once in a lifetime” treat for much of Sydney.

Is it worth it? Well, for your (lot of) money, you get thirteen courses (or fourteen in my case as I was comped one) of cooking that would put it near the very pinnacle of any serious eater’s “must do’s”

It is not flawless, of course. How many meals are? Out of fourteen, there were probably three or four misfires. But, there are moments of surprise and brilliance to compensate, a sensitivity to local ingredients and one dish that will be considered amongst the very greatest of culinary creations when the good lord decides to create a degustation menu in Heaven.

I was surprised, at first by how utilitarian the room looked. The chairs are uncomfortable and the lighting is flat and makes the room and everything in it look unattractive. Not hard for a pug ugly like me but unflattering to the uber beautiful of Sydney.

But, the service was, as it should be for that money, on the ball. Polite and formal, without being stuffy.

As a side note, they had no issues with me taking pictures of my meal, as long as I did not use the flash. Fair enough. All of which makes the recent protestations at Number 6 look even more silly.

There is no point listing the dishes. You can see all of that online. Although, I do wish they would list all the ingredients as each dish contained at least two things that were unannounced and meant I was constantly asking questions.

What did I like?

a pant wettingly good disc of smoked ocean trout with avruga caviar which came topped with a quail egg yolk protected by a scallop mousse. The yolk dribbled from the mousse when punctured and the whole lot was mixed together to form the most extravagant tartare which was complimented by a small tumbler of sake.

A small plate of wagayu came with lime and wasabi which made even those jaded taste buds of mine feel like they had been wakened from the dead.

A ravioli of spanner crab was accompanied by a simple tomato and basil vinaigrette and sat on a small mousse of more crab wrapped in nori. As good an example as you are ever likely to find.

A perfectly good scallop carpaccio raised its game with the addition of four tiny cuttlefish tempura which crunched pleasingly by way of counter point to the soft scallop slices.

Best of all, however, was Tetsuya’s signature dish. More ocean trout, but this time confit in local olive oil, topped with konbu (seaweed) and served on a bed of baby fennel and shredded daikon. It is hard to describe how good this dish this is. So good that it managed to survive the clumsy addition of a green salad so heavily laden with balsamic that it would have killed all taste for that dish and those to follow had I not left it well alone after one bite. So good that I carved small thin slices from the fish to make the eating of it last all the longer. So good that conversation at all the tables surrounding me came to an appreciative silence in their conversations as each person put the first bite of this in their mouths. This is one of “those” dishes that rank up there with the very best.

What didn’t I like?

Pea soup with bitter chocolate sorbet got the meal off to a bad start as these unlikely bedfellows showed why they should stay of opposite ends of the menu.

Twice cooked, de-boned, poussin was oversalty thanks to an enthusiastic use of anchovies.

A small spoon of lentils cooked with brown sugar topped with grated comte just didn’t work. Plain and simple.

Vanilla bean ice cream with white beans & dates suffered from an overly aggressive cooking of the beans to a softness that left no counterpoint to the softness of the very good ice cream.

The decision to use only Australian ingredients wherever possible limits provides a challenge to the sommelier and the wine flight struggled to keep up with the invention of the cooking. A some, like a leesy chardonnay, worked well, in this case with the spanner crab raviloli. Others, like a pinot grigio, were insipid and uninspiring. For the desserts, the French sommelier brought me two glasses of eiswine. One local and one from Austria. Let’s just say, the Australians have a long way to go in this niche market.

Minor quibbles, I grant you. But, for $300 and for a menu that has changed little in recent times, you could argue that there should be no room to get things wrong.

For all that, this didn’t feel like culinary list ticking. It felt like a kitchen still striving to be at the top of its game even if they did not always get there. Tetsuya was very much in effect in the kitchen and did not make an appearance in the room until towards the end of service when he came out to glad hand a few favoured guests.

There are lots of reasons I chose Sydney for one of the first stops on EAT MY GLOBE. Tetsuya was one of them. I am not disappointed.
(MORE PICTURES WHEN I HAVE A BETTER CONNECTION)

BREAKFAST WITH BILL. LUNCH WITH HANNAH
So, here I am in Sydney and bloody knackered I am too, I can tell you.

More of that anon on EAT MY GLOBE, but for the moment, suffice to say that the 21 hours of Quantas hospitality took it out of my ageing body more than is good for it during these advancing years.

So, after a run this morning to clear the cobwebs, it was time for a decent breakfast.

For the last few years, Breakfast in Sydney has meant one thing, Bill’s, the eponymous restaurant of perma grinned, blonde uber chef Bill Granger. The acceptable face of Modern Australian cuisine or “mod oz” as I hear someone refer to it recently.

Not far from my hotel, Bill’s is in the desperately chic neighbourhood of Darlinghurst and, with the most modest of signs, it is hard to find. But, it is worth both the walk and the search to find it.

I arrived a little before 9am to find it filled with the achingly hip and well to do who were not having to rush to the office and plonked myself down at a table in the small airy room.

It took a while to get noticed and, when I did, to persuade them to bring me a menu. The service managed to look harried, but be glacial at the same time. It was also pretty gruff with lots of use of the word “buddy” but I guess that is Aussie men for you.

When I did order, it was worth the wait and being called “buddy” even by someone who did not even have a letter of introduction.

An order of scrambled eggs with sourdough toast and sides of gravadlax and ricotta shouldn’t tax a breakfast kitchen too much, but it is often the simplest things that are so hard to get right.

Here they were not just right, but perfect. The scrambled eggs were creamy and just the right side of firm. The sourdough, tasty and with the perfect crunch. I slathered half of my cheese on one slice of the toast and melted the rest in my eggs to make them even more creamy. With some salmon plonked on top and washed down with orange juice, it was as good a breakfast as I can recall.

God bless the weakening Aussie dollar and the strength of the pound as it brought the bill to a massive AU$30 which equates to about £12.50 which is a lot for breakfast, perhaps but not for a meal as necessary and enjoyable as this. Perhaps they can call me “buddy” after all.

After a slope around town and a few hours in The Powerhouse Museum, one of my favourite museums anywhere, I was a bit peckish again. Jet lag I think as my body treated breakfast as last nights supper and now, by 2pm, wanted breakfast.

Fortunately, right outside is Hannah’s Hot Pies.

I am not sure what it is, but I have a thing for all Hannah’s. I used to have a huge crush on a girl called Hannah when I was a schoolboy. I currently have any number of inappropriate middle aged fantasies about Hannah Spearritt, that little chippy who was in S Club 7 and now prances around in her skimpies in Primeval.

Now, I can complete the trio by having wet dreams about this little tease.

This Hannah is not made of sugar & spice but of shortcrust pastry, lean beef mince and gravy. Whereas the dreams of the other two involved mud or whipped cream, here she is topped with a mound of mushy peas for me to eat off her before diving in to the soft yielding flesh beneath (creeped out yet?)

I have said this before, but don’t be too surprised if you see me outside The Houses of Parliament with a sign calling for the legalization of union between a man and a meat pie.

A nice day. Liked Bill a lot. Loved Hannah.
( MORE PICTURES LATER - VERY SLOW CONNECTION)